16 Teachers Kept on the Sideline

By ROBERTA HERSHENSON

Published: June 2, 1996

PURCHASE—
THE term was over at Purchase College, but Kenneth J. Cielatka was still at the library here, preparing lesson plans in mathematics as he has done every day for nearly two years.

A mild-mannered man with a neat mustache and graying red hair, Mr. Cielatka is in exile from Children's Village, the nonprofit child-care agency in Dobbs Ferry where he taught for three years. He and 15 other tenured teachers from Children's Village, a residence and school for troubled boys, age 5 through 16, had been assigned to writing lesson plans in libraries countywide since being suspended for union activity in June 1994.

The teachers have prepared more than 5,000 lesson plans so far, but Mr. Cielatka says that few if any of them have been used. Instead, the plans, which he calls busy work, are piling up along with millions of dollars in salary payments, consultant's fees and legal costs that the Greenburgh 11 School District, which was formed solely for Children's Village, has paid because of the suspensions. The state's tenure law requires the district to keep paying the teachers salaries and benefits, amounting to about $45,000 each a year.

"There's a tremendous waste of money that no one seems very concerned about," said Jeff R. Cassidy, a representative in the Elmsford regional office of the New York State United Teachers union, which has contested the suspensions on the state and Federal level. "It's a terrible thing not only for the teachers but for the students, who have had teachers pulled out from beneath them. There has been virtually no attempt on the part of the district to resolve this."

The teachers want to return to their jobs, saying the district's target is really the union. Administrators for the district, however, say that the teachers have proved themselves unfit for the classroom. Virtually absent from the controversy are New York City, which accounts for nearly all referrals to Children's Village, and the state, which reimburses the city for three-fourths of the $82,000 in tuition for each student that the city pays to the school and the district each year.

"It's a labor dispute," said Traci Brown, a spokeswoman for the New York City Administration for Children's Services, a placement agency. "We can't get involved in their labor disputes." She said the city is mandated by the state to pay $34,000 a student to Greenburgh 11 and $48,000 a student to Children's Village, rates set by the State Education Department and the State Department of Social Services, respectively.

Officials at the New York State Department of Education described a "longstanding, poisonous relationship" between the union and Greenburgh 11 but said the state had no authority to intervene. "The Commissioner of Education no longer has a role in terms of oversight or judgment in tenure cases," said Christopher Carpenter, a spokesman for the Education Department. He said the Legislature had recently revised the law "to streamline it."

The latest trouble at Children's Village, where teachers are among the lowest paid in the county, began in March 1994 when teachers who had gone for three years without a raise disobeyed a restraining order and distributed leaflets outside a dinner sponsored by the agency.

The teachers said they misunderstood the terms of the restraining order, but Judge Aldo A. Nastasi of Westchester County Court found them in civil and criminal contempt of court.

The dispute escalated three months later when 30 teachers assembled outside the office of Sandra G. Mallah, the district superintendent, to await news of rumored suspensions. Mrs. Mallah, in a recent interview, called the group "a potentially violent mob" that "came to this office deliberately to harass." The teachers deny that charge and say that a security officer who was present testified that their behavior was not disruptive. The union has filed a Federal lawsuit charging Children's Village and the district with violation of the teachers' 1st and 14th Amendment rights.

Charges were also filed with the state's Public Employment Relations Board, which was expected to hear final testimony last Friday. John Goetschius, president of the Greenburgh 11 Federated Teachers, a chapter of the state union, said he expected the teachers to win their case and return to Children's Village.

Mr. Cielatka said the children had been devastated by the suspensions. "These kids have gotten into a great deal of difficulty," he said. "The biggest problem for these kids is dealing with change. Many have been abused. We were the most stable influence in their lives."

In the absence of a community of parents, the union said it has performed as a watchdog for wasteful practices at Children's Village by both its board of directors and by the Greenburgh 11 Board of Education, which is selected from the 30-member board of directors. Union members say that the more than $1 million in total salaries paid each year to the District 11 administrators is excessive for a district with fewer than 300 students, even those in need of special education.

"It's incomprehensible that any district would spend that kind of money," said Mr. Goetschius, who taught at Children's Village for 31 years and now spends his days writing lesson plans at Westchester Community College. "The administrators are taking raises while there have been no raises for the teachers."

Mrs. Mallah said that the administrative staff was actually small in number compared with other districts and accused the union of pressuring social service agencies not to refer youngsters to Children's Village. She said the enrollment had dropped this year to 265 from the usual 300. In addition, she said the increased salary costs for the suspended teachers and their replacements, legal fees and salaries for two consultants who monitor the suspended teachers have been offset by teachers accepting retirement packages. Currently at Children's Village, there is a total of 100 teachers, guidance counselors and other certified staff members, plus 80 teachers' aides.

Her supporters have portrayed Mrs. Mallah as a hero for standing firm against the teachers, who she said "handled themselves in an absolutely abhorrent way; they are not fit to be with children who need role models for lawful behavior."

Mr. Cielatka, who worked as a special education teacher for 25 years before his suspension, disagreed. "Instead of saying we're poor role models, we were showing the kids a very peaceful way of handling a labor dispute," he said. "Their normal reaction is to do something violent."

Photo: Lost in the Stacks -- Kenneth Cielatka, suspended Children'sVillage teacher, works on lesson plans at Purchase College. (Roberta Hershenson for The New York Times)